A Study in Sin (13 page)

Claire packed up her gear and threw it in the back of the truck. As she drove towards home, she was hopeful that she had just misread the mood, that her father and her fiancé were just getting to know each other a little better. She quickly convinced herself she was being ridiculous and that nothing was wrong, replacing her worry with thoughts of a cozy night at home.

The Colonel sat in the back seat of his car as his driver pulled out of the alley and into traffic. His week had been an interesting one, and he was more than pleased with finding that fucking langer Jimmy Rhino after all these years. He hadn’t entirely believed when Daugherty interrupted to tell him the news.

“Boss?” Daugherty had butted in, a phone in his hand.

“Not now.”

“Colonel, you’re going to want to hear this.”

“I said not now.”

“No, now. We found Jimmy Rhino,” he said.

The Colonel demanded to speak with the man who was wasting his time with such a ridiculous story.

When Daugherty handed him the phone, Jack Clarke told him that he’d seen Jimmy with his own two eyes, knew where he lived, and would be more than happy to stay out in the country until the artillery arrived.

“I’ll take care of everything, Colonel,” Jack said. “I promise you, I’ll bring him back and lay him at your feet, dead or alive. Your call.”

But now, as his car rolled through the streets of Dublin, the Colonel found himself just as irritated as he was pleased.

The problem lay in the fact that Jimmy Rhino was a legend in Dublin. The young guys didn’t even believe he was a real person. They’d tell stories about some massive man who stole millions after taking out an entire building of people with nothing but his bare hands. The Colonel once saw Daugherty backhand a kid so hard he blacked out after the kid had said that he heard Jimmy Rhino was shot nine times on his way out of the building and that it never even slowed him down.

After the robbery, they had done everything they could to spread the rumor that Jimmy had quickly been found and cut up into little pieces, but most of the guys at the time knew it was bullshit.

Now, those idiot McCarty brothers, in all their wisdom, had spread the news that Jimmy Rhino was in fact alive and well and had bragged about how they were the ones called in to rain down real justice. The brothers were more than capable, in fact, the Colonel had only known them to be ruthlessly effective, but the younger one had a big mouth.
That won’t serve him well
, the Colonel thought.

The news of Jimmy Rhino being alive, and in-country no less, had caused a stir in Dublin, and this left the Colonel in quite a predicament. He never had any intention of letting Jimmy live, although he did want to collect as much of what was owed him as possible before his men brought Jimmy back to Dublin in a body bag.

But if the rumors started to fly that the Colonel was taking it easy on Jimmy, giving him a chance to pay back what he had stolen, well, that just wouldn’t work. And the Colonel knew how that shit went. First, one guy thinks it, then another says it, and then it’s common knowledge.

He remembered back to what it was like in 1977, how the other bosses had tried to move in on his territory after the word got out how easy it was to steal from the Colonel. It had been six months of chaos, where every criminal in Ireland treated it like open season.

He couldn’t allow the rumors to get worse. He couldn’t be seen as soft. At his age, he already felt the walls closing in around him as the younger generation began to stake claims over what would be theirs when the Colonel finally
retired
. 

No, he had to end this now. There was only one choice left to him.

The Colonel picked up the car phone and paged Jack Clarke, who at that very moment, was tucked behind a tree, silent and waiting, staring down at Jimmy Ryan’s house.

Aiden decided the drink in front of him would be his last. He knew he needed a clear mind to plot out the best spots for traps, how to funnel anyone who came at the house into one area, where the high-grounds were, and where to shoot from. He was busy readying himself for war when two old guys shuffled past.

“He’s probably just burning off some brush,” one of them said.

“Yea, well I hope everything’s ok. Think we should call someone? Just to be safe I mean?”

The comment caught Aiden’s attention.

“No, no, I wouldn’t worry about it,” the first one said. “Two pints,” he called to the man behind the bar.

Aiden turned towards the two. “What’s the problem?”

“What?” the older of the two asked after he realized Aiden was talking to them.

“The problem, what’s the problem? You were saying you should call someone just to be safe.”

“Oh it’s probably nothing; there’s smoke coming from over near the Ryan’s place is all.”

The stool Aiden had been sitting on hit the floor as he raced out of the bar. When he cleared the corner of the building, he saw the puff of smoke rising above the trees off in the distance. A pit took root in his stomach as he ran for his old truck.

It’s always an interesting feeling when you talk yourself into a fight, your fists tight, your resolve set in stone. You pump yourself up for violence, for war, and you’re convinced you’re ready for whatever sets itself in the way of your rampaging path. No man, and no monster, can hold you back; you’re ready for battle.

But the resolve that took such effort to build melts away when that moment finally comes. When that beast presents itself, you feel yourself sink inwards, as if it’s only the bones and organs underneath that keep you from imploding. The war-tested veteran knows how to push the feeling aside, possibly even harness it, but for the uninitiated, the fight you’ve prepared for is nothing compared to the internal struggle you now face.

Aiden knew the feeling as he sat behind the wheel of his truck, pumping the gas pedal over and over. He twisted the key and tried again. The truck sputtered and lurched, but wouldn’t start. Aiden tried again. And again. Still nothing. He grabbed the keys, slammed the door, and leapt out, rust from the underside of the truck falling to the ground below.

Night had fallen and there was a chill that hung in the air; Aiden noticed neither as he ran toward Ryan’s farm. When he crested over one of the hills, he caught a glimpse of the smoke the two old guys had been talking about, only now, it was accompanied by the orange glow of flames.

He ran for what felt like hours until, finally, he reached the gravel drive. When he came upon the house, he was forced to stop in horror, for the entirety of the Ryans’ farm was engulfed in flames; not just the house, but the shed in the back, and the barn further down the drive. The heat licked at his face as he stood taking the scene in, frozen, incapable of knowing what to do.

Amongst the chaos, Aiden saw something that was less-right than everything else: tucked away around the far corner of the house was the Ryan’s family truck. He could see the back end hanging out, just past the porch. But it shouldn’t have been there. Claire had a show in town and had taken the truck before he had driven up to the bar.

He stared at the truck, and then back at the front door of the house, the smell of the burning wood filling the night air. The pit in his gut grew, but he pushed it aside.

At a dead sprint, he ran onto the front porch and planted his foot near the handle, kicking the door in. The wave of heat that met him almost knocked him to the ground, but he fought his way inside.

He screamed as loud as he could, first for Claire, then for Jim. Not only was the fire unbelievably hot, but it was so loud that he could barely hear himself yell. It was like trying to have a conversation with an airplane directly overhead.

Aiden began to cough as he checked the living room and made his way towards the dining room; both were empty. His skin felt like it was melting off and his vision began to blur as the flames and smoke billowed around him. Back in the hallway, he glanced at the stairs to his left, but quickly decided that making his way upstairs would more than likely be the last decision he ever made. A chunk of the ceiling split away and fell flaming to the floor in front of him. He looked past it, to the end of the hall and saw the door to the kitchen propped open.

There, seated with his back against the door, was Jim Ryan, his hand outstretched in the direction of Aiden. Only he wasn’t moving, his body sat limp on the ground, and his skin was black and charred as the flames covered and moved around him. Aiden noticed that his feet were bound with a thick rope that was also on fire.

He dropped to one knee and started to cough uncontrollably. His mind was hazy and felt dizzy. The heat was too much. He wondered to himself what it was going to feel like to be burned to death. But, from somewhere deep in his memory, he remembered that people almost always asphyxiated from the smoke before they were burned by the fire. Most never felt anything. He found the thought comforting, and it gave him a sudden burst of strength. He pushed himself up to a standing position and stumbled towards the front door.

He didn’t make it, though, and quickly fell back down to the floor. Instead of trying to stand again, he started to crawl. But the smoke got to him in the end, and although he would somehow survive, the rest of his ordeal would be nothing more than the fuzzy end to the moment that would define him as a man.

When the fire trucks and police showed up, they found Aiden Clery blacked out, sprawled on the bottom steps of the porch. His back was burned from being turned towards the flame. He finally came around the next day in a hospital bed, and immediately asked for Claire. Instead, an officer was the first person that came and talked to him.

“Where’s Claire?” Aiden asked.

The officer took a breath and looked down at Aiden, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we found Claire upstairs. She was bound at the wrists and ankles. We weren’t able to get to her in time,” he said.

Aiden said nothing. His eyes began to tear up before the officer stretched out a hand towards him. He handed Aiden a plastic bag. Inside was a small gold ring with ‘CC’ inscribed on the inside.

Aiden looked at the bag for a second, then opened it and silently slipped the ring onto his smallest finger, letting the bag fall to the ground.

He turned over and put his back to the officer, not hearing anything else he would say. His skin throbbed from the burns, but it was nothing compared to the pain he felt inside. He decided in that moment that he would dedicate the rest of his life to one purpose and one purpose only. With that, he closed his eyes, and succumbed to the exhaustion, the faces of the McCarty Brothers fresh in his mind.

For the months that followed, nobody could say exactly what happened to Aiden Clery. Most of his time was spent in the shadows of Dublin, collecting as much information as he could to help track down the McCarty Brothers. The fierce desire for revenge never stopped raging within him.

On two different occasions, random shots from an anonymous shooter barely missed the younger McCarty, both times shattering windows behind him and causing him to run off in fear for his life.

Then a plan was put in place to take out the older McCarty, who was both more brutal and much more intelligent than his quick-mouthed brother, with a homemade explosive. Unfortunately for Aiden, his attempt was careless and didn’t work. Not only did the intended victim find the device before it went off, but Mike McCarty spotted the man who was watching from across the street and immediately recognized him as the young boyfriend of Claire Ryan.

Soon after, Aiden Clery was found beaten to within an inch of his life on the sidewalk of a Dublin side street. He was in the hospital for three months and his assaulters were never found. Moreover, Aiden never gave the police an official statement to work with, sticking to the story that he didn’t remember what happened or why he was in the hospital.

When he left the hospital, he again attempted to find the brothers that had nearly killed him for the second time. But his efforts were unsuccessful and nobody seemed to know much of the two he was interested in. He would later find out that they had been sent to Boston, though the information did him little good, as he barely had the means to eat, let alone pursue them across the Atlantic.

Aiden was forced to take a job washing dishes in a Dublin pub. After a few months, he worked his way up to bartender and started saving his earnings. He promised himself that he would save for exactly one year, but due to a few unforeseen complications, his one year promise quickly turned into three years, and then four. But never once did he falter in his dedication to track down Claire’s killers, not for a second.

Eventually, he made his way to the States, and not much was heard of him for a long time after. Along his travels, he actually managed to track down the brothers, who he believed were now in Chicago under fake names: the younger of the two going by the name Finton Cormack and the older as James McKeague.

In 2005, Aiden was arrested a block from the Cook County Courthouse after he assaulted a man. A group of young college guys were making their way to a nearby bar when they saw a dark-haired wild looking man pounding away at a shorter man in a suit. Acting to protect their fellow man, they inadvertently kept Aiden Clery from beating Patrick McCarty to death. In actuality, they had probably saved Aiden. For when he saw Patrick on the street alone that day, a furious rage took root in him and, if not for the group of men that stopped him, he more than likely would have killed Patrick McCarty in broad daylight for all of Chicago to see. He was held in the county jail, but no charges were pressed against him and he was ultimately released.

Most men, having come so close to catching their prey, only to be dragged off and hauled to jail, would have abandoned their pursuits in the face of doing hard time. But Aiden’s resolve had never been stronger. It had been a decade since he last saw one of the McCarty Brothers and as he held onto the bars of his cell, he thought to himself that it was only a matter of time until he carried out the revenge he was owed.